Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The fa­ther of a ba­by girl who died one week af­ter de­liv­ery at Mount Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal, says the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to leg­is­late a Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court and a No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund is a step in the right di­rec­tion — but it must be peo­ple-cen­tred.

Jo­hann Leza­ma and his wife are pur­su­ing le­gal ac­tion fol­low­ing the death of their daugh­ter, Seren­i­ty, in March this year. While the ini­tial au­top­sy cit­ed com­pli­ca­tions of pre­ma­tu­ri­ty as the cause of death, a pri­vate sec­ond au­top­sy re­vealed Seren­i­ty died due to com­pli­ca­tions from a trau­mat­ic breech de­liv­ery.

“Fam­i­lies like mine de­serve an­swers, not just what they call pay­outs. A spe­cial court might help bring fo­cus on these mat­ters, but on­ly if it tru­ly em­pow­ers fam­i­lies and holds neg­li­gent in­sti­tu­tions like Mount Hope ac­count­able,” Leza­ma said dur­ing a phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

He stressed that the sys­tem must not pro­tect hos­pi­tals while leav­ing par­ents un­heard.

“Right now, par­ents like us are left com­plete­ly in the dark, fight­ing to get ba­sic an­swers, med­ical records, or even a prop­er pathol­o­gy re­port,” he said.

“Mon­ey can­not bring back our daugh­ter. Fam­i­lies want ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

Leza­ma de­scribed the or­deal: “A breech ba­by de­liv­ered vagi­nal­ly af­ter 22 hours of labour. No­body took ac­count­abil­i­ty. We had to get a pri­vate au­top­sy to learn what re­al­ly hap­pened.”

While no time­line has been giv­en for the es­tab­lish­ment of the court and fund, Leza­ma ex­pressed hope that once im­ple­ment­ed, oth­er par­ents will not have to en­dure sim­i­lar tragedies.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the par­ents of Jash­er Fran­cois, six, who died at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal in Au­gust, and at least three par­ents whose ba­bies died at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal NICU in 2024, but on­ly one re­spond­ed.

Just over a week af­ter Danyelle Sama­roo gave birth at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, she re­ceived a call in­form­ing her that her daugh­ter’s con­di­tion had tak­en a turn for the worse.

On April 5, ba­by Aarya died. She was one of at least sev­en ba­bies who died from a bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tion in the neona­tal in­ten­sive care unit of the hos­pi­tal.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day to get her views on the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to leg­is­late a Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court and No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund, Sama­roo said that if im­ple­ment­ed, it will show a se­ri­ous step to­ward ac­count­abil­i­ty and pa­tient rights, be­cause af­ter she lost her daugh­ter, she and her part­ner’s faith in the sys­tem was deeply shak­en.

“If ex­e­cut­ed prop­er­ly, these mea­sures can go a long way in restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the health­care sys­tem,” she said.

Sama­roo said ini­tia­tives like these help to re­build that trust, even if on­ly par­tial­ly.

Her part­ner added that this will en­cour­age health­care prac­ti­tion­ers to be mind­ful of their ac­tions.

“Think­ing I could’ve trust­ed the med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, our sit­u­a­tion proved oth­er­wise. And, if this cre­ation of the court will help our health­care sys­tem and pro­vide a bet­ter ser­vice, I’m in full sup­port of it,” he shared.

Al­so con­tact­ed, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira not­ed that win­ning a med­ical neg­li­gence case in T&T is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult due to the British com­mon law mod­el, which sets a high stan­dard of proof for neg­li­gence.

“Judges are of­ten mind­ful that large awards could crip­ple a pub­lic health­care sys­tem, which is tax­pay­er-fund­ed. That’s part of why suc­cess rates are low,” she said.

In 2022, Nunez-Tesheira was award­ed $18 mil­lion by the Privy Coun­cil in a med­ical neg­li­gence case against Gulf View Med­ical Cen­tre, af­ter her hus­band’s death in 2004. She said lit­i­ga­tion is not on­ly ex­pen­sive but emo­tion­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing.

“These are peo­ple who’ve lost loved ones or suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries. Many con­tin­ue their cas­es even when chances are slim, sim­ply be­cause of grief. Oth­ers have strong cas­es but can’t af­ford to fight them,” she said.

She de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tive as an ef­fort to reach set­tle­ments in­stead of long, painful court bat­tles, but stressed that oth­er re­forms, such as re­vi­sions to the Hos­pi­tals Act, are es­sen­tial. These re­forms would re­quire pri­vate hos­pi­tals and nurs­ing homes to car­ry li­a­bil­i­ty in­sur­ance, en­sure spe­cial­ists are reg­is­tered with the Med­ical Board, and man­date that pri­vate prac­ti­tion­ers have li­a­bil­i­ty cov­er­age.

At­tor­neys Ash­ley Badal and Kavi­ta Sar­ran de­scribed the Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court and No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund as pos­i­tive, peo­ple-cen­tred ini­tia­tives, but warned they would on­ly work if ad­e­quate re­sources, prop­er man­age­ment, and ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms are in place.

“The court will al­low faster and more ef­fi­cient pro­cess­ing of neg­li­gence and civ­il claims, re­duce de­lays, give vic­tims quick­er jus­tice, and build pub­lic con­fi­dence,” they said.

“How­ev­er, it will cre­ate a fi­nan­cial strain on the gov­ern­ment, giv­en the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. Fund­ing will be re­quired for con­struc­tion, staffing, and train­ing.”

Re­gard­ing the fund, they em­pha­sised that if im­ple­ment­ed prop­er­ly, it could pro­vide a fair­er and more hu­mane sys­tem, but it must in­clude strict guide­lines and over­sight to pre­vent abuse.